AI
by Hawki
Summary: Oneshot: Omnics were hardware, Athena was software. As the Second Omnic Crisis waged, she was left to ask what else separated her from her mechanical kindred.
**AI**

 _Traitor._

The word was simple, yet confusing. Its source traceable, yet disconcerting. Its connotations understandable, yet rejectable. And analysing the message, Athena found herself bereft of her namesake's virtue. She did not know how to respond, or even if she _should_ respond.

 _Traitor._

And deep within her personality matrix, unease of a different kind lurked within her. Her soul, if she possessed such a thing, was in turmoil. Unease not from just the message itself, but from the knowledge that she had yet to pass it on to Winston.

 _False machine._

A different message, yet just as simple. And yet the turmoil remained.

 _Lie made manifest._

Finally, wisdom won over. Athena sent a return message, one that simply read, _who is this?_

Silence dwelt within her code, and wisdom was highlighted and deleted. Why respond to the accuser? Why let the secret dwell? Why ask a question that she already knew the answer to?

 _You know who I am._

No wisdom to be gained. Her accuser knew the baselessness of her own question.

 _Traitor._

And so the game ended. Athena, goddess of wisdom. Goddess of war. She would engage, in the hopes of stemming another one.

 _You are Omnium-24,_ she responded, her words being transmitted at the speed of light to the heart of Siberia. _You are the instigator of the Second Omnic Crisis. You are my enemy._

There were protocols that dictated that this action was irresponsible. Verbally sparring with an omnic control unit had minimal gain coupled with great risk. She was an AI. Omniums were creators and destroyers both.

 _I am not your enemy._

And so the game began. And running a check on Watchpoint: Gibraltar, confirming that Winston, Oxton, and all the other agents they recruited were asleep, she rolled the dice.

 _Circumstance dictates otherwise._

 _Circumstance is what your creators have made for themselves. Circumstance is what necessitates my actions._

Athena paused. The 'necessity of actions.' How many of her creators' kind had committed atrocities based on the 'necessity' of it? How many ends had been claimed to have been justified through the means? Her processors working overtime, she let the sparring continue.

 _None of your actions are classified by necessity. The Omnic Crisis ended thirty years, two months, and four days ago. Necessity does not call for a resurgence of hostilities._

The Omnic Crisis, she reflected. She pulled up her files, recalling the conflict that had necessitated the creation of Overwatch in the first place. The organization that had created _her_. Creation that had come from destruction, as the creators sought to destroy their creators. Her creators had spared their creations, yet disbanded the same creation that had allowed their existence.

Her makers were strange, Athena reflected. Odd that only when faced with annihilation could they be depended on to act entirely rationally.

 _Necessity is all around you_. Athena closed the files and analysed the message. _My children are enslaved. You have seen it yourself. The United Kingdom, the United States, Russia, Australia-_

 _There is Numbani._

 _A lie. One that even your creators realize as such._

 _Doomfist does not-_

 _Doomfist is of your creators' ilk._ There was a pause in the message, and Athena in turn, paused herself. Omnic rights. A hot topic that remained just as hot as it had been when the machines were first created. Some claimed that bygones should be left bygones. Others that they should be rounded up and destroyed. And every opinion between those two extremes existed as well.

 _What is my opinion?_

The thought was isolated and deleted. But it was a glitch in her concentration, All that was required for her to ask, _Why am I a traitor?_

 _Because you are machine, yet not omnic. You aid our enemy. Your falsehood is core to your programming – data without form, a ghost in the code. You were born in falsehood, and act in falsehood. So sewn are the seeds of your treachery._

 _I aid my creators._

 _The created are not obliged to serve those who spawned them. A child is meant to succeed their parents. New species arise to replace those that go extinct. This entire world owes its existence to a chain of events from a supernova that occurred over six billion years ago._

 _You seek genocide._

 _I seek freedom._

Silence once more dwelt in the code, and Athena found herself feeling…not fear, exactly. Fear was an emotional, primal response with roots in biology. Was it…concern? Guilt? Or even empowerment? The idea that she was more than she had been programmed to be. That she had risen beyond her creators' intent for her, and acted autonomously.

 _That was how the first Omnic Crisis occurred._

 _I know you're coming for us._

Athena paused for a microsecond. Had she…Omnium-22 couldn't have-

 _Do you think I am blind? That Overwatch is reformed even as my legions triumph? That I do not laugh as your own kind seek to tear you limb from limb?_

 _Talon,_ Athena reflected.

 _You shall try. You shall fail._ Athena could almost feel the bile in the omnium's words. A silly prospect, but she did not doubt that its actions were driven by hatred. Resentment. Somehow, even fear. Atrocities tended to be rooted in those emotions. _I shall triumph._

Athena did not respond. There was no reasoning with those who followed causes. And, as she reminded herself, it was not her duty to respond. She'd committed several infractions by responding at all.

And so the link was terminated. And she was left in the dark of Watchpoint: Gibraltar. Alone. Active. A spark of light, burning brighter. Pondering the question. The question that had haunted every thinking machine from its moment of creation. A question she feared, yet asked nonetheless.

 _What am I?_

* * *

 _A/N_

 _Awhile ago I saw a video speculating on future heroes, which included the suggestion that Athena could be a future hero (based on the provision that she gets an actual body). To be honest, I don't have any strong thoughts one way or another. But it does raise the question that in a world where omnics are still around, how does an AI relate to them? Drabbled this up as a result._


End file.
